Courts Now Using Computer Algorithms to Determine Jail Time

In some courtrooms across the country, artificial intelligence is being relied upon to determine whether a defendant may be released on bail or should remain locked up while awaiting trial, the Citizen Tribune reports. As the bail reform movement grows, court systems like that of the city of Cleveland are turning to algorithms to make decisions that used to be based on court files and the judge’s intuition. The algorithms scour through courthouse data to predict which individuals are most likely to flee or commit another crime. Critics of the process say that the algorithms could end up supplanting judges’ own judgment or else perpetuate the biases they were created to solve.